The
California Supreme Court has taken the unprecedented
step of returning 24 cases for harsher discipline. The Supreme
Court would exceed its jurisdiction by expressly
demanding an outcome, so it must order the bar court to “reconsider” the
discipline or itself impose the harsher sentence. But the Supreme Court’s terse
message was clear for all who could read, for two reasons: the Supreme Court
cited the infamous Silverton decision; and most tellingly, the
Supreme Court returned no cases in which the Bar Court had recommended
disbarment. The Supreme Court wasn’t interested in reversing disbarments; it
wanted a greater number.
Why
didn’t the Supreme Court impose the disbarments itself? This way, it sent a
clear message to the State Bar: we want you to do the dirty work; that’s the
reason you exist! The State Bar immediately took the hint by petitioning to recall 24 additional cases, despite the patent
illegality of this move. (State Bar Court Rules of Procedure, Rule 807(b)(2).) The
one-sidedness of the Supreme Court’s intervention—tacitly urging greater
harshness rather than justice—reassured the State Bar the Supreme Court would let
it run untrammeled.
Only
the patsies in the state-bar defense establishment contrived to construe the Supreme
Court’s message as ambiguous. The state-bar-court system is their playground
and their livelihood. Never do official bar-defense attorneys appeal to the federal
courts. That would violate their silent contract with the Office of Chief Trial Counsel.
California
lawyers should take the Supreme Court’s order—especially its omissions—as an
official announcement that it will overlook unjust prosecutions and excessive
verdicts. If there is any legal remedy for unjust treatment by the California
State Bar, it lies in the federal courts—where official bar-defense counsel
will never tread.
